Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the art of driving structures such as rods, tubes, posts and the like into the ground and especially deals with a ground rod driver successively clamped along the length of the rod transferring impact blows from a driving tool to the rod axis to minimize bending stress of the rod and to provide convenient, safe operating heights for the driving tool.
Heretofore structures to be driven into the ground such as rods, posts, tubes and the like were impacted at their top ends by manual or power driven hammers. This created an awkward, difficult, and unsafe operating position, especially with rods of more than a few feet in length. When the top end of the rod was above the shoulder height of the hammer operator, it was necessary for the operator to stand on a platform to have the impact blows delivered to the top end of the rod. Even in operations where the driving tool was suspended from an overhead crane or the like, the impact blows delivered to the top end of the rod would tend to bend the rod between the ground and the impacted top end. This type of known driving operation is especially troublesome with long drive rods that force ground anchors into the ground to depths sufficient to fix the anchor in the ground.
It would therefore be a definite improvement in this art to provide a device for driving rods and the like into the ground which avoids all of the deficiencies and problems of the heretofore required procedure of impacting the end of the rod with a manual or power operated hammer.
It would especially be an improvement in this art to force rods and the like into the ground from a level close to the ground through the media of a driver clamped to an intermediate portion of the rod, above but close to the ground, driven to ground level, raised on the rod to a starting level and reclamped to the rod for successively forcing increments of the rod length into the ground without subjecting the rod to damaging bending stresses.
An important feature of this invention is to provide a rod driving system which pushes rods into the ground by a force applied close to the ground along the axis of the rod.
As used herein and the claims, the term "rod" includes structures driven into the ground such as rods, tubes, posts, bars, stakes, and the like.